Attracting The ‘Right’ Booth Traffic When Marketing Products Or Services

The job of a trade show marketer is not easy by any means. Your goal is to generate as many good leads as possible. To boost your booth traffic, you attempt to lure visitors to come to your booth with exciting convention games and promotions. This technique is a great way to drive traffic to your booth. Keep in mind that your ultimate goal is to draw in the right traffic. You need to connect with visitors that you can convert to leads and eventually to sales. You can’t rely solely on your booth entertainment to make those connections. If you attract thousands of attendees who want to participate in your booth entertainment but don’t want to buy, the quantity of your leads isn’t going to make a difference.

What Will Attract The Right Traffic To Your Booth?

To attract traffic, several classic techniques will work to your advantage when marketing products or services.

Location, Location, Location! Motivated attendees can find you anywhere, but if your booth is at or near the front or in a main traffic corridor, you will have a better chance of attracting those who are simply passing by. Larger trade shows and conventions typically allow companies who exhibit each year to have first pick of the space, so you may never be able to get the most visible space unless someone drops out. You need other strategies in place to lure visitors.

Create excitement at your booth. The days of tabletop shows where you can simply place a few products and brochures on the table and pull in crowds are long gone. You need bright, larger-than-life graphics, exciting entertainment, interactive product displays, and technology to make your booth a visitor magnet.

Send invitations. Typical attendees don’t plan to stay for the duration of the trade show. Often times, they only stay for a short time and so they may pre-plan their booth stops. In order to capture these attendees, you must know your target audience and invite them to your booth in advance of the show. While a mailed or emailed invitation is the norm, you should also include social media in your pre-marketing strategies to increase exposure. Often the invitation will mention a giveaway, prize, product demo, or other concrete incentive for dropping by your booth. You can even mention trade show events, such as a free seminar, presentation, or reception.

Plan relevant games or contests. Visitors might love to win a vacation, an iPad, or a big screen TV, but unless you are in the travel, technology, or electronics industry, how will that help you? Unlike small value giveaways such as candy, pens, or key chains, your big ticket prizes for convention games should be related to your business and relevant to your target audience. Prizes that will both benefit you and the attendee might include product discounts, upgrades, accessories, training, or a flash drive or mini-tablet loaded with product information. To maximize the ROI of your trade show giveaways, your offers should always entice the consumer to purchase from or do business with your company.

Product demos, consultations, or seminars. The more industry-related your offering, the more likely visitors will seek you out if they are interested in your product or service. Only a very tired booth visitor will come to sit through a presentation on semiconductors or industrial waste management if they have no long or short term interest in the topic.

Show promotions. Though many visitors have future interest in what you are offering, there is often low hanging fruit among attendees too. For those with immediate need to buy, you can offer a show discount. Since some visitors are not authorized to make corporate purchases on the spot, make sure to extend the offer for a reasonable period beyond the show. So you don’t lose the potential sales, make sure that accessing the show deal is easy by offering a promotional code for attendees to give when they buy, or access to a landing page they can visit to take advantage of the special pricing.

By carefully planning incentives that draw in the right type of potential buyers to your booth, you can make the best use of your trade show dollars.